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PMS? No, PME: Premenstrual Ego

“Almost every woman has her share in the collective female pain-body, which tends to become activated particularly just prior to the time of menstruation.At that time many women become overwhelmed by intense negative emotion.”

In the book, Tolle appears to be adhering to basic Buddhist philosophy and re-working it so that he may claim it as his own.He then goes on, as in the above passage, to take a random gathering of facts and combine them together as “proof” of his theories.He’s pandering to the female reader; saying, it’s not your fault that you get emotional – it’s your Ego.It aggravates me that he can take a natural female function, like our period, and turn it into an expression of the Ego.During our period, women have chemical fluctuations which causes some (not “many”, Eckhart, “some”) women to have intense emotions.His comment seems as uneducated as the guy who says “I can’t trust anything that bleeds for a week and doesn’t die”.

Tolle goes on to say:

“Although women have egos…the ego can take root and grow more easily in the male form than in the female.This is because women are less mind-identified than men.They are more in touch with the inner body and the intelligence of the organism where the intuitive faculties originate…If the balance between male and female energies had not been destroyed on our planet, the ego’s growth would have been greatly curtailed.We would not have declared war on nature, and we would not be so completely alienated from our Being.”

Is Tolle asking us to revert our thinking back to the Mars/Venus days?Some women may be less mind-identified than men – some may be more in touch with their bodies, but to imply that ALL women are this way is to categorize and alienate women from the collective.Instead of separating women out as being more evolved or having less of an ego, our goal should be to equally balance the yin (female) and yang (male) in all humans.I would love to think that if women ran the world we would have a healthy planet, no wars, and a holistic approach to our Being. However, I don’t think that’s necessarily true.It takes a yin/yang balance of each individual and the world in general to ensure a healthy planet, worldwide compassion and a well-balanced Being.

1 thought on “PMS? No, PME: Premenstrual Ego”

It seems that you largely misunderstand the messages Tolle is conveying here, and perhaps that’s because you didn’t read it thoroughly. Firstly, the hormonal and chemical changes a woman’s body goes through during her cycle are a condition which leaves us more susceptible to the pain-body’s uprise. When we are balanced and centered, it’s less likely that things will upset us, but once they do, ego latches on to our weakness and clings for all it’s worth. It’s like a germ that, when introduced into a strong system of antibodies, doesn’t stand a chance, but when your immunity is low, you’re more likely to become ill. Also, if only 10% of women suffer from PMS, that is still a LOT of women – many, even. I can assure you that the numbers are much higher than that, especially in women who have had children, as close to 70% of mothers experience an increase in PMS.

As for the yin/yang concept you mentioned, that’s precisely what he was trying to convey. He said that if the balance had NOT been thrown off, the collective ego would be far less destructive. He doesn’t say that women should rule all. Balance is key. I think we all agree on that. 🙂

P.S. If anything was implied there, I imagine it would be a generalization of women, not a concrete “all” women. That’s what I took it to mean, since I know that there are exceptions to every rule.